Billie Piper will reprise her role as Rose Tyler for four new Doctor Who audio stories from Big Finish. And she’s not alone.
She’s joined by Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Rose’s mum, and Shaun Dingwall making his audio debut as Pete Tyler, Rose’s (parallel) dad. Also reprising their roles is Mark Benton as Clive Finch and Elli Garnett as Caroline Finch or, more accurately, their Pete’s World counterparts.
The Dimension Cannon, due for release in September 2019, will follow Rose in four adventures travelling through a collapsing multiverse.
- The Endless Night by Jonathan Morris
- The Flood by Lisa McMullin
- Ghost Machines by AK Benedict
- The Last Party on Earth by Matt Fitton
Matt Fitton will also serve as script editor with Helen Goldwyn directing. In a distinct shift in tone, the series will be a human-focused sci-fi drama without aliens invasions or supervillains to thwart.
“What we have is different to previous iterations,” says producer David Richardson. “It’s rather dark, though never short on wit and charm, but it’s not really about villains. It focuses on the fight to survive against the odds, and on the power of family and love.”
Billie Piper
Piper first returned as Rose on audio in last year’s second volume of The Tenth Doctor Adventures alongside David Tennant. Prior to that, she was last seen on Doctor Who as The Moment taking on Rose’s form in 2013 for the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor.
“I love how normal Rose is, and yet really extraordinary,” says Billie Piper. “She lived a normal average life but she is incredibly curious and has an enormous capacity for love and empathy and is really spirited. She is extraordinary…That’s the great thing about Doctor Who. It challenges new-thinking. It’s progressive and it can be political in amongst these human emotions and relationships. I think that’s its greatest appeal.”
Benton!
Mark Benton’s return is definitely unexpected since he played alien investigator Clive Finch in a relatively small guest role in the show’s first revival episode Rose. Clive was brutally shot down by the Autons in front of his wife Caroline (played by Elli Garnett, who also returns) and son the moment he was vindicated. The Dimension Cannon will show us how Clive fared in the parallel world.
Russell T Davies
The new series, in association with BBC Studios, comes with the blessing of Rose Tyler’s original creator Russell T Davies.
“I approached Russell T Davies with the idea of Big Finish making a Rose Tyler spin-off,” says producer David Richardson. “He was very enthusiastic – as always – and suggested we followed Rose’s journey that ultimately leads to her finding the Doctor in The Stolen Earth…Russell guided us gently through the development – steering us towards ideas that worked brilliantly, ensuring things that needed improvement were fixed, and also throwing out the ideas that didn’t work.”
The Dimension Cannon
The name of the boxset is taken from a line in the series four episode Journey’s End where Rose explains how she was able to return from Pete’s World. Having been trapped there in series two and the walls between realities closed by the Doctor, Rose works with her allies to construct a dimension cannon so she could come back. How true that was.
[…] the Doctor’s timeline, since he seems to be early days in his first episode and travels with Rose Tyler until he regenerates. David Richardson has the […]